


Five Conversations Claude has About Sid and One He has With Him

by Katstrikesback



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 13:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11291406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katstrikesback/pseuds/Katstrikesback
Summary: Pretty such what it says on the tin. Please check the tags and warnings.





	Five Conversations Claude has About Sid and One He has With Him

The main memorial is held in Pittsburgh, the entire NHL is in attendance joined by what feels like the entire population of the city. Everyone came to say goodbye to Sid and Claude can’t really believe he’s sitting here, even though he was already at the private funeral in Cole Harbor. The public memorial was held off until after end of the post season. 

Held off until the battered Penguins team surged forward, played like demons and swearing to win for their fallen captain. They wanted the Cup one final time for Sid and no other team truly wanted to stop them. Player after player got up to say a few words and it seemed like Sid meant something to everyone who’d played the game. Hell, maybe he had. Sid was like that.

Claude knows everyone expects him to speak but he doesn’t have the words, can barely breathe through his throat closing and dry swallows the ash in his mouth. He feels hallow, still shell shocked and all he wants is for this to be over, for this all to end, wants to wake up. He wants to walk into his front door and Sid to be on the other side.

He hasn’t spoken to the Penguins’ core since the hospital. What the fuck was there to say? Still, he isn’t surprised when Letang and Flower corner him on his way to the car.

“You just going to leave?” Letang says and he steps into Claude’s space. 

“Yeah.” He can see that Letang is spoiling for a fight, and Claude understands why but can’t summon the energy to care.

“Like you left then?” 

“What?” Claude’s been waiting for this but the accusation still steals his breath.

“If he’d been with you, if you would have just been happy for him instead of an asshole-”

“Chris,” Flower interrupts and places a restraining hand on Letang’s arm.

“No, if he’d been celebrating with his boyfriend at their fucking house then Sid would here. We’d be celebrating a Cup day.”

Claude doesn’t argue, deserves it because Letang is right and he doesn’t have a defense. If he’d been a little less petulant about getting knocked out of the playoffs by his boyfriend’s team then Sid would still be here.

“Not today, Chris,” Flower says and pulls him away.

Claude doesn’t mistake it for mercy, just respect for the dead.

XXX  
Claude is home alone and well on his way to drunk. He knows he shouldn’t be, he’d begged off Danny and the Flyers' concerns. He just wanted to be alone; this was his life now mind as well get started. He just wanted to ache and cry and fuck he missed Sid. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Sid is gone and hockey took him away and Claude’s never faced life without at least one of them. His life is a massive black hole pulling all the light away. 

He isn’t really surprised to hear his doorbell but he is surprised to see Taylor. She walks up to him, for a moment Claude thinks she might slap him but she drags him into an embrace and together they crumple to the floor. When she finally speaks, her voice cracks and Claude wants to have the energy to get her water but his bones hurt.

“Tanger was wrong you know.”

“Taylor -”

“Don’t, listen to me. Sid was my brother and I knew him best expect maybe you. He was a shit loser, he understood.”

Claude sighs, “I know.” And he starts to cry again. He craves Sid’s touch, for his pissy losing face. He wants to sleep on the couch again because the Flyers won Game 3.

“That morning,” he starts and his throat hurts, words rough. “I didn’t get up with him. I wanted to sleep the extra half hour.”

“Oh Clo, it wouldn’t have changed anything,” Taylor says and hugs him tighter.

“I know, I just wish I’d have gotten more time with him.”

“What are we going to do without him?”

Taylor sounds so lost but Claude doesn’t have an answer.

XXXX

Team Canada meets separate from the memorial and Claude almost doesn't go. Pricey and PK show up at his door an hour before the appointed meeting time. If he cared more, Claude would call it kidnapping. They have the get together nearby at a hotel and he isn’t surprised to see they all made it. He is shocked to see that instead of alcohol, there is cheesecake.

PK clears his throat,”Instead of copious amounts of booze because that wasn’t Sid’s vice, I have supplied a shit ton of dessert. Sid would have eaten this everyday of his life, diet plan be damned.”

There is a light chuckle from the assembled players and for a moment Claude hates them. Hates that Sid would have loved this and will never have it. Hates them for getting to have this moment and then go home to families, spouses, go home to lives that aren’t shattered.

At first everyone eat quietly and it’s Tyler who breaks the silence because who else would it be?

“Everyone talks about what a great player Sid was, and he was, but also he was the best Captain. He could have used all that talent to make guys feel like shit but that just wasn’t Sid. He always had an answer or the right thing to say or condoms. Or sometimes all three.”

Tyler is crying at the end and it’s like a dam breaks. One by one each guy opens up and shares a memory or story.

Finally, it's Claude’s turn to speak, “The thing about Sid was, he was really fucking weird. He had all these beliefs and superstitions and that disgusting ass jock. You guys don’t even know the half of them but Sid. He just had this power to sweep you up in it and instead of finding it annoying as hell it was endearing. But Sid was also a shit because he would draw you in and then exploit the hell out of you.” Claude finishes with a smile and all the guys at the table have the same one, each remembering their own experiences with Sid’s superstitions.

“One time he made me drive to six different store for that peanut butter.”

Claude smirks.

XXXX

Mario shows up six months after the memorial.

Claude motions him in the house, casting a look around at the mess and realizing he should care more but fuck it. He suffers through the pleasantries and gets Mario a coffee, he has to wash a cup for it, because Sid had loved him and it's all Claude can do.

“How are you?” Mario asks again, and he looks like he wants a real answer this time.

“I keep expecting him to walk in the door and yell at me about the gym. Some days I want to call him with a question about dinner.”

Mario nods, “I keep expecting him to be in his stall after practice.”

Claude chokes up, “Is someone else?”

“No, no. I’m not sure if there will ever be. I don’t know if it would be better or worse,” Mario looks down.  
Sometimes Claude hates Mario for going on, for continuing Penguin hockey without Sid, for acting like a businessman, for moving on. Then there are these moments when he remembers that Mario lost a son.

“I heard they all refused the ‘C’,” Claude says to fill the empty space.

Mario jerks his head, “We’re rotating the ‘A’s for now.”

It sounds empty to Claude, practiced and automatic. He doesn’t envy Mario his position. He doesn’t have a response because it’s just further proof that life goes on, hockey is still played even if he can’t. Even if Claude is staying still.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the statue we have being made.”

“Claude smirks, He would have hated it.”

“I know but the fans want it.”

Claude gets it even if he doesn’t want to; Sid may have hated the attention but he understood the business.

“We’re retiring his number, obviously, the whole league is but we having a ceremony. I wanted to know if you -”

“No.”

“Claude, -” Mario starts.

“No,” voice steal and sharp.

Mario finishes his coffee in silence, and as he leaves he squeezes Claude’s shoulder.

“If you change your mind, just call.”

He doesn’t.

XXXXX

Geno stops by on the anniversary day, dressed in black.

“We get together, you come.”

“Not feeling it.:  
“Not care, you should come, be good.”

“No thanks.”

Geno glances around the house and Claude knows it looks bad, he just can’t seem to care.

“I let this go too long.”

“It’s not any of your -,”

“Sid my best friend. Partner is my business. You quit hockey, don’t go out. Avoid friends. Sid wouldn’t want -”

“Who gives a fuck?” Claude spits. “Who gives a fuck what he would want? He’s dead and I have to be here without him and it’s my fault.”

“No!” Geno yells, vicious and angrier than Claude’s seen him. “No. Some crazy, asshole fan pissed about game shoot him. Not your fault.”

“Not what Letang thinks.”

“Tanger is hot head. Not mean. Just sad.”

“Me too.”

“Claude, Sid not your fault. You don’t take blame from asshole.”

Geno comes over and hugs him and Claude can’t remember the last time someone hugged him.

“You stop play.”

“How could I play for the city that took him from me?”

“Was hard for me too. Hard go out without Sid. Miss everyday.”

Claude sniffles and breathes hard into Geno’s shoulder.

“How do you do it?”

“Is where I feel him. Sid love the ice. Love hockey.”

Claude chokes out a laugh, “He would haunt a rink.”

Geno smiles, it's watery and a little shaky but he sticks out a tongue, “Maybe you come see?”

Claude doesn’t say yes but for the first time in a long time he thinks he could.

+1

Officially Claude has never seen Sid’s tombstone. He never came back after the funeral because if Sid’s soul was anywhere it wasn’t in the ground. Still, there is something to be said for graveside chats.

“So, I know this is late. I was going to do this when one of us had the Cup that summer. I got the rings made special and everything. They're steel, not the most romantic metal but it’s from our first skate blades. Got your dad’s blessing and your mom had your skates. I had this whole speech planned about how these blades were our first steps on the path to meeting each other, to hockey and our destiny.”

Claude pauses, holding back tears. “I was going to propose no matter who won. I figured by the time the finals came the loser would have had time to be happy. Sid, I’m so sorry I didn’t ask sooner. Sorry I was sulking. I’m so, so sorry you’re gone and I’m not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on[Tumblr](https://bethethunder.tumblr.com/). I wrote this during the first round of the play offs but my dear [whisperedwordsofhockey](https://whisperedwordsofhockey.tumblr.com/) convinced me it was bad luck to post it.


End file.
